Wobbles in the Barriers: Arctic Oscillation (4)

This is a continuation of my series on the Arctic Oscillation / North Atlantic Oscillation. Links to background material and previous entries are at the end.

In the last entry I suggested that if you were on a bridge overlooking a swiftly flowing creek then you would notice that twigs floating in the water did not move across the current. They are carried downstream along the edge of the current. The purpose of that comparison was to demonstrate how fast-moving, concentrated flows have the effect of isolating one side of the creek from the other. This is true in the creek, and it is also true about jet streams in the atmosphere.

One way to understand the Arctic Oscillation is to think of it as the variation of an atmospheric jet stream. For the Arctic Oscillation the jet stream of interest is the southern edge of vortex of air that circulates around the North Pole (see previous entry). Air inside the vortex often has characteristics different from air outside it. Intuitively for the Arctic, there is colder air on the side toward the pole. If you look at trace gases, like ozone, they are different across the edge of the vortex. The takeaway idea is that the edge of the vortex is a barrier. It’s not a perfect barrier, but the air on one side is largely separated from the air on the other side. In this blog, I describe the difference between a strong and a weak vortex – which is the same as the difference between the positive and negative phases of the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Figure 1: This figure is from the point of view of someone looking down from above at the North Pole (NP). Compare this perspective to Figure 1 in previous blog. This represents a strong, circular vortex centered over the pole, which encloses cold air, represented as blue. The line surrounding the cold air is the jet stream or the edge of the vortex.

Figure 1 shows an idealized schematic of the North Pole as viewed from above. This is the strong vortex case, when there is exceptionally low pressure at the pole. Low pressure is associated with counterclockwise rotation in the Northern Hemisphere. This direction of rotation is called cyclonic. This strong vortex case is the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation. During this phase, the vortex aligns strongly with the rotation of the Earth, and there are relatively few wobbles of the edge of the vortex – the jet stream. I drew on the figure two points, X and Y. In this case, the point X is hot and the point Y is cold. It is during this phase when it is relatively warm and moist over, for example, the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Figure 2 compares a strong vortex and a weak vortex. In both cases, the circulation around a central point is counterclockwise or cyclonic. However, in the weak vortex case, the vortex does not align as strongly with the rotation of the Earth and there are places where the edge of vortex extends southwards. The vortex appears displaced from the pole; it is not centered over the pole.

Figure 2: Examples of a strong, circular vortex and a weak, more wavy vortex. See text for a more complete description.

Whether the vortex is stronger or weaker is determined by the atmospheric pressure at the pole. In the winter, an important factor that determines the circulation is the cooling that occurs at polar latitudes during the polar night.

What determines the waviness or wobbles at the edge of this vortex? The structure at the edge of vortex is strongly influenced by several factors. These factors include the structure of the high-pressure centers that are over the oceans and continents to the south of jet stream. One could easily imagine a strong high-pressure center over, for example, Iceland, pushing northward at the edge of the vortex. This might push a lobe of air characteristic of the middle latitude Atlantic Ocean northward. Since the edge of the vortex is something of a barrier, this high-pressure system would distort the edge of the vortex and, perhaps, push the vortex off the pole. This would appear as a displacement of the vortex and its cold air over, for example, Russia. If the high grew and faded, then this would appear as wobbles of the vortex.

Other factors that influence the waviness at the edge of the vortex are the mountain ranges and the thermal contrast between the continents and the oceans. The impact of mountains is easy to understand. Returning to the creek comparison used above, the mountains are like a boulder in the stream. The water bulges around and over the boulder; the air in the atmosphere bulges around and over the mountain ranges. The Rocky Mountains in the western half of North America are perfect examples of where there are often wobbles in the atmospheric jet stream.

Figure 3: This figure is from the point of view of someone looking down from above at the North Pole (NP). This represents a weak, wavy, wobbly vortex displaced from the pole. The vortex encloses cold air, represented as blue. The line surrounding the cold air is the jet stream or the edge of the vortex. (definition of vortex)

Figure 3 shows an idealized schematic of the North Pole as viewed from above. This is the weak vortex case, when the low pressure at the pole is not as low as average and the pressure is much higher than the strong vortex case of Figure 1. This weak vortex case is the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation. During this phase, the alignment of the vortex with the rotation of the Earth is less prominent, and there are wobbles of the edge of the vortex – the jet stream. In this case, the point X is cold and the point Y is hot. It is during this phase where it is relatively cool and dry (but potentially snowy) over, for example, the eastern part of the United States.

These figures help to explain the prominent signal of the Arctic Oscillation discussed in the earlier entries (specifically, this blog). That is, when the vortex is weak and wobbly, then there are excursions of colder air to the south and warmer air to the north. This appears as waviness and is an important pattern of variability - warm, cold, warm, cold.

The impact of the changes in the structure of edge of the vortex does not end with these persistent periods of regional warm and cold spells. The edge of the vortex or the jet stream is also important for steering storms. Minimally, therefore, these changes in the edge of the vortex are expected to change the characteristics of how storms move. Simply, if the edge of the vortex has large northward and southward extensions, then storms take a longer time to move, for example, across the United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans. In the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation they just whip across. In the negative phase, the storms wander around a bit. A more complete discussion of this aspect of the role of the Arctic Oscillation will be in the next entry. (Note use of dramatic tension and the cliffhanger strategy of the serial.)

Denial is a stadium wave Passing through a crowd An undulating rant and rave Where reason ain’t allowed

Back and forth and in and out Like wheat-fields in the breeze Rambler waves without a doubt Brain raves if you please

Warning: “stadium waves” may be hazardous to your health. Take precautions: Always wear a braincoat and avoid the urge to stand/sit (or kneel, like they do in church) just because everyone around you is doing it.

"Radio Iowa reports that 155 scientists from 36 colleges and universities in Iowa are jointly issuing a call for action against global warming and calling on the US Department of Agriculture to update its policies to better protect the land. 'The last couple of years have underscored the fact that we are very vulnerable to weather conditions and weather extremes in Iowa,' says Gene Takle, director of the Climate Science Program at Iowa State. Both years were marked by heavy spring rains followed by droughts that damaged Iowa's farmland. 'This has become a real issue for us, particularly with regard to getting crops planted in the spring,' says Takle adding that Iowa had 900,000 acres that weren't planted this year because of these intense spring rains. 'Following on the heels of the disastrous 2012 loss of 90% of Iowa's apple crop, the 2013 cool March and record-breaking March-through-May rainfall set most ornamental and garden plants back well behind seasonal norms,' says the Iowa Climate Statement for 2013 . 'Iowa's soils and agriculture remain our most important economic resources, but these resources are threatened by climate change (PDF)." When the Iowa climate change statement was first released in 2011, 44 Iowa scientists signed on and last year's statement was signed by 137 Iowa scientists. "It's easy to set up a straw-man argument, to say, 'Oh, well climates always change; there have been changes in the past. This might just be natural,' " says David Courard-Hauri. "And often that gets played on the Internet as, 'Maybe scientists haven't thought about the fact that there have been natural changes in the past and maybe this is related.' " Of course scientists have thought about that possibility, says Courard-Hauri, but the evidence strongly suggests the climate is changing faster than could be expected to happen naturally."

Saving the planet from short-term thinking will take ‘man on the moon’ commitment

“We choose to go to the moon.” So said John F Kennedy in September 1962 as he pledged a manned lunar landing by the end of the decade.

The US president knew that his country’s space programme would be expensive. He knew it would have its critics. But he took the long-term view. Warming to his theme in Houston that day, JFK went on: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

That was the world’s richest country at the apogee of its power in an age where both Democrats and Republicans were prepared to invest in the future. Kennedy’s predecessor Dwight Eisenhower took a plan for a system of interstate highways and made sure it happened.

Contrast that with today’s America, which looks less like the leader of the free world than a banana republic with a reserve currency. Planning for the long term now involves last ditch deals on Capitol Hill to ensure that the federal government can remain open until January and debts can be paid at least until February.

The US is not the only country with advanced short-termism; it merely provides the most egregious example of the disease. This is a world of fast food and short attention spans; of politicians so dominated by a 24/7 news agenda that they have lost the habit of planning for the long term. Britain provides another example of the trend. Governments of both left and right have for years put energy policy in the “too hard to think about box”. They have not been able to make up their minds whether to commit to renewables (which is what Germany has done) or to nuclear (which is what the French have done). As a result, the nation of Rutherford is now prepared to have a totalitarian country take a majority stake in a new generation of nuclear power stations.

Politics, technology and human nature all militate in favour of kicking the can down the road. The most severe financial and economic crisis in more than half a century has further discouraged policymakers from raising their eyes from the present to the distant horizon.

Clearly, though, the world faces long-term challenges that will only become more acute through prevarication. These include coping with a bigger and ageing global population; ensuring growth is sustainable and equitable; providing the resources to pay for modern transport and energy infrastructure; and reshaping international institutions so that they represent the world as it is in the early 21st century rather than as it was in 1945.

"All Power Labs in Berkeley, California has produced and sold over 500 machines that take in dense biomass and put out energy. What makes the machines special is that instead of releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, it's concentrated into a lump charcoal that makes excellent fertilizer. The energy is produced cheaply, too; many of the machines went to poor nations who normally pay much more per kilowatt. '[T]he PowerPallets are still relatively simple, at least as far as their users are concerned. For one, thing Price explained, much of the machine is made with plumbing fixtures that are the same everywhere in the world. That means they're easy to repair. At the same time, while researchers at the 50 or so institutions that have bought the machines are excited by opening up the computer control system and poking around inside, a guy running a corn mill in Uganda with a PowerPallet "will never need to open that door and never will," Price said.'"

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the moderator(s) and/or admin(s) who have been weeding out the recent tsunami of climate change denial comments here. I've noticed that you've been very active here lately, and it is very much appreciated. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

Quoting 391. Cochise111:Perhaps we should let geologists predict climate using real science. They couldn't do any worse than the present charlatans. Look out, the ice-age cometh:

First of all, people should be aware that the journal in this link is the "Providence Journal," a Rhode Island newspaper, reporting on a book. The book is “The Whole Story of Climate: What Science Reveals About the Nature of Endless Change” by geologist E. Kirsten Peters, a Washington State University geology professor.

From descriptions and reviews of this book, it appears that she takes issue with the concept of a stable climate, even though a relatively stable climate in reality has facilitated the rise and growth of modern human civilization. Dr. Peters seems to talk a lot about regional climate, and ignores the science behind, and study of, the current AGW/CC event. And she uses the "we should not harm the economy, therefore we don't need to try to nothing to change nature's path" meme. The incredibly naive statement that "I believe that once we come to grips with the fact that climate is bound to evolve, we will see it is past time to start new conversations not predicated on the framework of somehow holding climate static through the sacrifices of carbon taxes or caps," shows that her anti-scientific blinders have been fitted tightly - even though she is a scientist...

Her book may be a giant bowl of cherries ripe for the picking, and denialist charlatan Mark Morano at ClimateDepot just put up a page for Dr.Peters and her book today. I don't plan to buy the book, will wait for a thorough review from someone with a solid understanding of AGW/CC, including the related geological and paleontological factors. But she's literally taken the #1 climate myth at SkepticalScience.com ("climate has changed before," therefore AGW/CC is wrong) to new heights of ludicrosity. She has to taken a denialist position that will make her a darling of the denialist industry, so she will probably make some decent income from book sales. She is now a de facto member of the DPA (Denialist Professors of America).

Quoting Dr. Kirsten Peters:I believe that once we come to grips with the fact that climate is bound to evolve, we will see it is past time to start new conversations not predicated on the framework of somehow holding climate static through the sacrifices of carbon taxes or caps. We can adopt what carbon policies we choose, but we also surely had better invest in tools for climate adaptation and mitigation. It’s time we begin to think about how we will try to cope with sharp changes in weather patterns, those that could be either in the direction of warmer or colder conditions. The simple truth is that if we think of climate change as our enemy, we will always be defeated. For change is coming, and it will reshape our world. Our goal cannot be to hold climate static, but to understand its menacing and manic moods – and adapt as nimbly as we can to changes in whatever directions and at whatever rates they arrive.

It's pure b.s. by her that geology is not included and/or given prominence in the current study of AGW/CC. The American Geophysical Union (AGU), is a Washington, DC-based international non-profit scientific association with more than 60,000 members, who work on a broad spectrum of scientific topics that span all of the Earth and space sciences. Here's the position statement of the AGU:

Adopted by the American Geophysical Union December 2003; Revised and Reaffirmed December 2007, February 2012, August 2013.Human‐Induced Climate Change Requires Urgent Action Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years.

Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes.

Human activities are changing Earth’s climate. At the global level, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat‐trapping greenhouse gases have increased sharply since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel burning dominates this increase. Human‐caused increases in greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed global average surface warming of roughly 0.8°C (1.5°F) over the past 140 years. Because natural processes cannot quickly remove some of these gases (notably carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere, our past, present, and future emissions will influence the climate system for millennia.

Extensive, independent observations confirm the reality of global warming. These observations show large‐scale increases in air and sea temperatures, sea level, and atmospheric water vapor; they document decreases in the extent of mountain glaciers, snow cover, permafrost, and Arctic sea ice. These changes are broadly consistent with long‐ understood physics and predictions of how the climate system is expected to respond to human‐caused increases in greenhouse gases. The changes are inconsistent with explanations of climate change that rely on known natural influences.

Climate models predict that global temperatures will continue to rise, with the amount of warming primarily determined by the level of emissions. Higher emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to larger warming, and greater risks to society and ecosystems. Some additional warming is unavoidable due to past emissions.

Climate change is not expected to be uniform over space or time. Deforestation, urbanization, and particulate pollution can have complex geographical, seasonal, and longer‐term effects on temperature, precipitation, and cloud properties. In addition, human‐induced climate change may alter atmospheric circulation, dislocating historical patterns of natural variability and storminess.

In the current climate, weather experienced at a given location or region varies from year to year; in a changing climate, both the nature of that variability and the basic patterns of weather experienced can change, sometimes in counterintuitive ways ‐‐ some areas may experience cooling, for instance. This raises no challenge to the reality of human‐induced climate change.

Impacts harmful to society, including increased extremes of heat, precipitation, and coastal high water are currently being experienced, and are projected to increase. Other projected outcomes involve threats to public health, water availability, agricultural productivity (particularly in low‐latitude developing countries), and coastal infrastructure, though some benefits may be seen at some times and places.

Biodiversity loss is expected to accelerate due to both climate change and acidification of the oceans, which is a direct result of increasing carbon dioxide levels. While important scientific uncertainties remain as to which particular impacts will be experienced where, no uncertainties are known that could make the impacts of climate change inconsequential. Furthermore, surprise outcomes, such as the unexpectedly rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice, may entail even more dramatic changes than anticipated.

Actions that could diminish the threats posed by climate change to society and ecosystems include substantial emissions cuts to reduce the magnitude of climate change, as well as preparing for changes that are now unavoidable. The community of scientists has responsibilities to improve overall understanding of climate change and its impacts. Improvements will come from pursuing the research needed to understand climate change, working with stakeholders to identify relevant information, and conveying understanding clearly and accurately, both to decision makers and to the general public.

Many of you are probably aware of a “report” which is intended to contradict the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. Its authors call it the “NIPCC” report for “Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change.” It’s supposed to represent the very best that so-called “skeptics” have to offer.

But in my opinion, a much more accurate acronym would be “ICP” report — for “Intentional Cherry-Picking.” You don’t have to look any further than their “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) to see cherry-picking taken to the extreme. And I do mean, extreme. One of the most obvious, most egregious, and frankly most ridiculous examples is Figure 4 from their SPM. It looks like this:

Here’s what they have to say when referring to this figure:

“… a wide variety of datasets other than the HadCRUT global air temperature curve favored by the IPCC do not exhibit a warming trend during the second half of the twentieth century. See Figure 4.”

I'm still this far behind, and I haven't read the linked blog yet. But based on my reading of the "Figure 4", my 'favorite' part is where they "starting point" and "ending points" they used for comparison nearly completely overlapped-- of course there's little visible trend, when only two years of the end-range are independent of the starting-range... and both ranges end just before the global temps do their upward step in 1998, and exclude any of the warm 2000's years, too.

Birthmark already gave you the details, but here is a great general guideline to follow to avoid embarrassment on science-based fora: if the piece to which you're about to link is a) several years old, and it b) appears on a denialist website that c) hasn't been updated in six months, and it cites d) a "project" that has been thoroughly discredited and debunked and dismissed by mainstream scientists, along with e) most people familiar with it, then you should probably not bother linking it.

Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before. — Lewis Thomas

I like the other Lewis Thomas quotes that Daisyworld included in #352, but I'm not very fond of this one... it doesn't reflect my understanding of how science works.

"Wrong" to me means nothing salvageable... you throw the whole shebang out and start over. That rarely happens with a major body of accepted work. Rather, science functions by incremental refinement... the residual errors and effects not covered by today's theory are explained by tomorrow's updated version, and today's theory often continues to be useful as first-order approximation, or in certain special cases.

As written, Thomas's quote gives the anti-science crowd far too much leverage, which is probably why it was chosen by our friend, tramp96. Consequently, I would prefer something more like: "Science thrives on the unexplained. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that our previous understanding just wasn't quite good enough."

ANDREW Bolt is Australia's loudest and most popular climate science doubt-spreader who just loves to stoke the fires of environmental conspiracy theorists with his daily splurge of blog posts and his weekly radio and TV shows.

The blogger and columnist in the Murdoch-owned News Ltd press describes climate change as a "religious movement" and says climate scientists are part of a global conspiracy.

Bolt allows his commenters to refer to the United Nations as the "United Nazis" and regularly joins the "one world government" conspiracy theorists while pulling quotes out of context to insinuate "warmists" have ambitions of totalitarian "global management". He maligns solar power at every opportunity and claims wind farms are an "insult to the intelligence".

Andrew Bolt has no scientific credibility, Hockey Schtick has no credibility, anyone who quotes or links to either has no credibility.

More on Bolt

Australian Press Council Finds Against Climate Sceptic Columnists"IT'S the new must-have accessory for any self-respecting climate science denialist commentator in Australian newspapers - their very own "Australian Press Council" adjudication showing exactly how they stuffed up the facts and misled their readers on their stories.

Whether they like it or not, serial climate science misinformers James Delingpole and Andrew Bolt are the latest News Ltd contributors to have their online articles furnished with freshly-added hyperlinks to APC judgements finding against them."...

...And what of News Ltd blogger and columnist Andrew Bolt? Back in February (yes, the wheels of the APC turn slowly) Bolt wrote in a story headlined "Time That Climate Alarmists Fessed Up" that the UK's Met Office had issued data showing there had been no global warming for 15 years.

Bolt had failed to check back with the Met Office, which had two days earlier issued a statement saying such a conclusion was "entirely misleading". The APC adjudication, delivered earlier this month, said

The Met Office description should have been mentioned in Mr Bolt’s print article and blog of 1 February, even if he then rebutted it as unconvincing. It was not sufficient in these circumstances to assert ignorance of the response or to rely on the reader’s previous posting to inform other readers about it.

The press council also concluded that statements made by Bolt about sea and ice conditions "were likely to be interpreted by many readers as indicating that the longer-term trends had ceased or were reversing" and that he "should have acknowledged explicitly that all of the three changes in question were comparatively short-term and were statistically compatible with continuance of the long-term trends in the opposite direction".

Hmm...wrong, bud. Antarctic sea ice increase is consistent with a warming world, interestingly enough Antarctic glacial ice is decreasing. I kind of feel bad for you since your so blindly fooled by pseudo science. What do you do for a living?

ANDREW Bolt is Australia's loudest and most popular climate science doubt-spreader who just loves to stoke the fires of environmental conspiracy theorists with his daily splurge of blog posts and his weekly radio and TV shows.

The blogger and columnist in the Murdoch-owned News Ltd press describes climate change as a "religious movement" and says climate scientists are part of a global conspiracy.

Bolt allows his commenters to refer to the United Nations as the "United Nazis" and regularly joins the "one world government" conspiracy theorists while pulling quotes out of context to insinuate "warmists" have ambitions of totalitarian "global management". He maligns solar power at every opportunity and claims wind farms are an "insult to the intelligence".

Andrew Bolt has no scientific credibility, Hockey Schtick has no credibility, anyone who quotes or links to either has no credibility.

More on Bolt

Australian Press Council Finds Against Climate Sceptic Columnists"IT'S the new must-have accessory for any self-respecting climate science denialist commentator in Australian newspapers - their very own "Australian Press Council" adjudication showing exactly how they stuffed up the facts and misled their readers on their stories.

Whether they like it or not, serial climate science misinformers James Delingpole and Andrew Bolt are the latest News Ltd contributors to have their online articles furnished with freshly-added hyperlinks to APC judgements finding against them."...

...And what of News Ltd blogger and columnist Andrew Bolt? Back in February (yes, the wheels of the APC turn slowly) Bolt wrote in a story headlined "Time That Climate Alarmists Fessed Up" that the UK's Met Office had issued data showing there had been no global warming for 15 years.

Bolt had failed to check back with the Met Office, which had two days earlier issued a statement saying such a conclusion was "entirely misleading". The APC adjudication, delivered earlier this month, said

The Met Office description should have been mentioned in Mr Bolt’s print article and blog of 1 February, even if he then rebutted it as unconvincing. It was not sufficient in these circumstances to assert ignorance of the response or to rely on the reader’s previous posting to inform other readers about it.

The press council also concluded that statements made by Bolt about sea and ice conditions "were likely to be interpreted by many readers as indicating that the longer-term trends had ceased or were reversing" and that he "should have acknowledged explicitly that all of the three changes in question were comparatively short-term and were statistically compatible with continuance of the long-term trends in the opposite direction".

Quoting 376. Neapolitan:Breathlessly boldfaced passages aside, I don't see a single thing in either abstract that sheds any new light on climate change. Of course, I have, perhaps foolishly, only read the abstracts as reproduced on HS, and as we've seen many times--many, many, many times--the HockeyShtick folks not above doing a little lot of selective editing when those abstracts don't quite say what their denialist/contrarian/skeptic audience craves, so I'll withhold full judgement until and unless I read the actual papers.

But HS told him how to interpret the papers he doesn't understand himself. It must be true!

Quoting 365. Cochise111:It gets worse and worse for the CO2 proponents. CO2 increases and temperatures decrease. As I've written for years, "it's the sun." Go ahead and attack these authors, because you can't attack their methodology.

Breathlessly boldfaced passages aside, I don't see a single thing in either abstract that sheds any new light on climate change. Of course, I have, perhaps foolishly, only read the abstracts as reproduced on HS, and as we've seen many times--many, many, many times--the HockeyShtick folks not above doing a little lot of selective editing when those abstracts don't quite say what their denialist/contrarian/skeptic audience craves, so I'll withhold full judgement until and unless I read the actual papers.

It's only science to you if it shows declining ice. Selective science it should be called. Why is it that everyone except the people on this blog admit that global temperatures haven't increased in fifteen years at least? Talk about denial.

Hmm...wrong, bud. Antarctic sea ice increase is consistent with a warming world, interestingly enough Antarctic glacial ice is decreasing. I kind of feel bad for you since your so blindly fooled by pseudo science. What do you do for a living?

Emergency crews battled a massive fire on Saturday after a Canadian National tanker train carrying oil and gas derailed west of Edmonton, Alberta, overnight. No injuries have been reported so far.

A Canadian National spokesman, Louis-Antoine Paquin, said 13 cars four carrying petroleum crude oil and nine loaded with liquified petroleum gas came off the tracks around 1am local time in the hamlet of Gainford, about 50 miles from Edmonton. The entire community of roughly 100 people was evacuated.

The Evangelical Science Denier and the Alarmist Fundamentalist Religious Cult: The Cornwall Alliance

I wrote an article on David Legates' denial of science a few hours ago. I've been told that David rejects science on quasi-religious grounds. He is a member of a cult called the Cornwall Alliance.

David Legates apparently rejects even more aspects of climate science than does Roy Spencer. Based on his article from yesterday, David rejects the greenhouse effect. The thing they have in common is that they are both members of an evangelical quasi-religious cult in the USA called the Cornwall Alliance. Based on their published material, this cult is a mixture of fundamentalist christianity, alarmist economics, pseudo-science, opposition to mainstream climate science and more than a hint of sexism (and suggestive of more deviant thinking). It assumes male supremacy and that men were put on earth to plunder as they please. Only in the USA, home of the weird and wacky.